Robin Chapman posts a poem, most days, from fellow poets with one of her watercolors.

2/06/2006

by Robin Chapman

THE GORILLA THAT WALKS THROUGH THE BASKETBALL GAME

Thirty professors at the chaos talk on how the mind works, we watch the white-shirted players on the videoscreen, doing our assigned job of counting the number of passes they make, not so easy when two different balls have appeared in play, and our counts at the end of the videoclip vary– eleven say some, fourteen insist others– but we’re feeling good that we’ve kept our eyes on the balls and the hands and the backs, carried out our appointed task, and when we’re asked if we noticed anything odd, no one nods; though shown the replay we see we’ve missed the gorilla that wanders through the twist of bodies, crossing the court from left to right in a leisurely way, looking about with curiosity– leaving us shaken by the query of what else we’ve missed in our lives keeping our eye on the ball.